weird competition between dps

So I had been tanking for years or so in savage raids, because the groups I had been in needed tanks, and I felt warrior was easy enough of a tank to just simply gear, get bored with, and spend the extra mental time afforded to me by playing war to learn fights, do callouts, and eventually get tired enough of slow groups to break out and go on my own.

I finally got to the point where I could dps and never felt happier.

However, I noticed something that I didn't notice before but on other games (it just wasn't as blatantly obvious on this one). There is subtle competition between melee dps that people don't notice.

I join a group and immediately someone runs to the corner that has the most uptime or the easiest routes if those exist. Then, even if I'm out damaging them, people refuse to limit break. I end up also having to give way and limit break for others. I'll also (sometimes) still be outperforming them even with dance partner and other buffs afforded to them. Many times partnercalc will also explicitly and in no uncertain terms label me as the one who clearly could have done more with the buff, but sometimes the other melee will use their DP dmg as an excuse to not limit break. Under those conditions, sure, but if I were with any serious actual static and not in pf, I clearly would have those buffs in many cases and would not be limit breaking. Sometimes those people are playing jobs that should be outperforming me but are not. Many times they are, but I'll find information on other websites indicating that even under those less-than-ideal circumstances, I'm still being ranked as playing better than they are, because of the math involved in ranking how you are doing at your job in that fight, still indicating the amount of effort I'm putting in is unequivocally more than theirs.

So then I wonder, why the subtle micro-bullying? I'm always adapting and giving others the opportunity to choose where they want to be first unless the shoe is on the other foot. There have been a few times where I decided to be selfish for once, and you would think I committed the world's biggest sin according to everyone standing by witnessing it.

(continued in the next comment)

Another thing I'll notice is that some players will wipe a raid because of their perceived need to keep uptime, because somehow they believe they truly are better than everyone else, but are not. Sometimes I'll see players die or wipe a lot trying to cement a "#1 dps in this group" status that I'm not exactly sure anybody is even caring about or noticing (but me and definitely them) and will wipe a group or not cooperate in order to achieve that, and sometimes still fail in acheiving it. Some people are successful and you'll see them start to play better when they feel they met someone else skilled in their group all of a sudden or that their fake status is being threatened. Sometimes, if they are successful, they will suddenly begin to be more vocal, maybe move their character around more, and other subtle things that both show confidence, but that confidence only existed when they felt like they achieved their goal of making everyone else believe that they are the most important person in the group or somehow equating that to being "number one dps". (They fail to realize ranking still puts this thought into perspective lol)

Some players will lie. I was in an ex mount farm group where someone asked if they can play blm as fake melee, because its the most geared job they had. Nobody cared, because we were farming. He didn't do well and immediately the next pull, switched to a melee job that obviously was BiS then did his absolute best to outdamage the top damage-dealer there and after baaarely squeezing out a little extra damage right at the end (i noticed the other player had some hiccups) they left the group. What was that? Obviously they lied, but somehow they felt so threatened that they had to rejoin as a melee, expose themselves as lying, and then leave after "achieving their goal". Maybe they didn't want to stick around for another run when the other dps didn't have such a hard time or bad crit rng? Maybe they didn't want to feel their perceived "dominance" was threatened? (once again, rank can put this all into perspective)

so after seeing a lot of this in this game that wasn't immediately obvious to me before, I have to wonder how much more of this I can put up with noticing before I just decide to stop playing or lose my mind by calling out everybody I see doing stuff like this and possibly result in getting myself banned by doing so lol. I cannot unsee what I am seeing.

Some players will always care about this stuff, that's any PvP game in a nutshell (and you are competing against your allies in this situation). Oh you have more deaths than kills, you can bet someone is going to call that out when things go to crap. Someone wants to ensure they have BiS and aim to get top DPS so their ego is not damaged, they'll do it. You just need to put it out of your mind and just do what you can, if someone is performing badly or making bad choices, no doubt someone else will raise it, just don't let minor things consume you.

Hm. Personally, I can't say I've noticed it much myself, even as a dragoon this tier. Even during M7S prog it was usually whoever got the damage down or death would do the Lb2, or if I took a little too long to do it when burning through all my burst damage, they'd do it anyways. Haven't noticed anything like what you describe in the second post either, but I suppose I just don't do enough farming for me to notice it either.

DPS players in general can be pretty ego driven though, so I'm not surprised. I certainly ride a high when I massively out DPS/aggro a viper with DP during 2 minutes, and the only time I throw myself off the edge is if I fuck my opener so badly that I'm actually screwed for the entire fight.

I often just don't care what other players are doing though. Just let them be the ego driven players they are, and laugh if they crash out over me doing better than them. I'm just there to get a clear and be done with it, I don't need to have beeg number to prove I'm a decent player, though it certainly feels good if I find out I did have a good number after the fact, especially with how I play quite safe with many mechanics.

If their pride gets shattered from me doing better than them, that's a them problem, not mine. If someone else is doing better than me, oh well, not in my interest to care.

Probably just feeling inadequate. For example in the game of World of Warcraft, I know that I had to humble myself to see myself so low in the damage numbers as a newbie, compared to another as the same class smashing the chart. I try to keep a healthier mindset and see them as a goal to strive for. Maybe others just want to be better but maybe feel some sort of jealousy, I don't know.

My theory is it's parser influenced brainrot.

Since a DPS's entire job is to maximize their damage as is, it just create a mindset that they *must* be at their best in any fight. And if they can't for one reason or another, they must make their party think they are because, again, a DPS's entire job is to maximize their damage and not doing so is both a personal failure and a team failure. Also, you must be a team player and help the DPS do their job at peak play or you are failing them.

Meanwhile just not sucking and completing the content with being dick to each other is the actual only goal.